


Summer of Youth

by Ihasa



Category: Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger
Genre: Multi, ahim ruins everything, and she's very proud of it, bathtime, gai is a bit of a bisexual disaster, gai makes an amazing discovery, hot take I know, it's a bath fic, nothing sexual happens but everyone is naked, scrubbie scrubbie, that opinion is that they all love eachother, the author has definite opinions about the gokais
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-13 20:20:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29407539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ihasa/pseuds/Ihasa
Summary: If you had told Gai Ikari that his punishment for listening in to the girls bathing was to be forced to get into the bath with both of them and the rest of the crew, he might have asked to be keel-hauled instead. He wanted very badly to just sink into the water and scream for a while, but he realized that if he did that he would be eyeline to nipple with everyone.---The Gokai Galleon has a bathtub big enough for six people, and Gai gets roped in the day he discovers it often *does* fit five.Set some time after the series.
Relationships: Don Dogoier/Ahim de Famille/Joe Gibken/Ikari Gai/Captain Marvelous/Luka Millfy
Comments: 8
Kudos: 23





	Summer of Youth

Gai Ikari was not a peeping tom. 

“ _ Ahim, come here, you have soap all over you still. _ ”

Despite current evidence.

Ok, wait, no, nonono, couldn’t start thinking of it that way, that was definitely not what was happening! This was fun, a little innocent boyish fun. 

He was standing outside of the bathroom, but not for any premeditated  _ reason. _ He had just  _ happened  _ to come by, and if anyone asked, he was just in the middle of mopping the hallway. That was why he was holding the mop, he was cleaning. He actually  _ had  _ been cleaning, one of his normal nightly routines that he shared with Doc, and he really  _ had  _ just happened upon this situation totally by accident. It was just that now he was  _ enjoying  _ the accident.

“ _ Oh, Luka, please be more careful, it’s going to get in my eyes! _ ”

And it wasn’t like he was going to  _ look, _ looking was something only a villain would do, only someone really truly evil would  _ intentionally  _ look.

There were some silken splashing noises. Two women, sighing.

Not that he was thinking of even  _ un _ intentionally looking! The idea, the very thought, made him feel terrible. He could imagine how disappointed in him Ahim would be. He could also imagine how hard Luka would hit him. Neither one of these things was desirable, though he wasn’t entirely certain if one would be worse than the other, in the long run. 

And Marvelous - well, actually, Marvelous probably wouldn’t care, he didn’t care about most things, except the things he really, really cared about, and if this was one of  _ those _ things then Gai would just be dead, probably.

“ _ You look so comfortable. You’re like a little cat. _ ”

There was giggling. He thought he heard a ‘meow’.

“ _ Kitties get scritches. _ ”

Gai leaned on the wall by the door, clenched his fist, and looked at the ceiling. There was nothing wrong with listening in, like this. Nothing at all. It was all very - what was that phrase? - ‘summer of youth’. He, a young man having a listen, them, a pair of young women having a totally normal bathtime together in the gigantic bathtub on the Galleon. Both parties having a lovely time, no one getting hurt, nothing weird about it. Just a little hot-blooded young man sort of thing. The kind of thing you kept in your heart, a little innocent secret you held deep in your breast. You did this kind of thing, when you were young. He assumed. He had never stumbled into the opportunity before.

But he respected Ahim and Luka immensely, had nothing but infinite, bottomless respect for them, both as his teammates and as Sentai at large, this wasn’t disrespectful towards them or anything, this was just-

“ _ Luka, your hands are so cold! _ ”

-just a little hot-blooded youth, a little, what was it, wild oats sowing? No wait, not that, that was something else, this was more like, well, he was a  _ pirate  _ now, so he was stealing a teeny tiny little-

“What are you doing?”

Gai full-throat  _ screamed  _ and tried to backpedal, but his back was already against a wall. He bumped his head, almost dropped the mop, and vaguely registered a very tired looking Doc who had appeared, silently, walking down the hall towards him. If he was honest, Doc probably hadn’t actually been silent, but Gai was very distracted, but that wasn’t important, because what  _ was  _ important was that  _ Gai wasn’t doing anything wrong. _

“I’m not doing anything wrong!” Gai said, in a way that definitely did  _ not _ sound like he was being strangled, as he turned the almost mop-drop into a casual mop-lean. “I’m mopping.”

Doc gave him a look, a slight knitting of his brows, a less slight twist of his lip.

“Okay,” Doc said slowly, and he reached for the doorknob. The one into the bathroom. Gai’s brain fuzzed out, and the next thing he knew he was grabbing Doc by the wrist and saying, in a terrified whisper:

“Whoa, what are you doing?”

“I’m going to take a bath, Gai, why-”

“Ahim and Luka are in there! Like, right now!”

Gai absorbed, finally, what Doc was wearing, which was a towel, a washcloth with ducks on it over one shoulder, and not a single stitch of anything else. Gai wrenched his eyes away and looked very specifically at Doc’s face. Doc’s face was saying:

“Yeah? So?”

“Doc they’re- they’re girls!” Gai said, a little lamely. He wasn’t sure how to say that in a smarter way, because it was a simple truth, and something Doc should have immediately understood the meaning of. ‘Yeah, so?’ was not a sensible reaction to this situation. 

Doc rolled his eyes and shook his hand free.

“Gai, I  _ just  _ finished the dishes. All the dishes. Dishes you wouldn’t believe. I’m tired, and I’m sweaty, and I want a bath. What’s your problem with baths?” And then, in front of Gai and everyone, with zero hesitation or apparent understanding of what grave sin he was committing, nor the immense danger he was putting himself in, Doc opened the door, and he went inside, muttering something like ‘backwards planet hates baths’.

To Gai’s shock, Doc was not immediately immolated in a column of fire. In fact, Gai heard:

“ _ Is everything all right? _ ”

“ _ Yeah, Gai’s just out there being weird. _ ”

“ _ Didja bring my snacks? _ ”

“ _ What? No, no snacks in the bath, that’s gross. _ ”

Luka started to whine. Doc whined more, but with a higher degree of proficiency. There were splashy washing off sounds.

Gai stood very still. The door did not help him understand the situation. Neither did the mop, though he tried very hard to get it to tell him.

Doc, he knew, was  _ not  _ a girl, but apparently… he was invited to the girls’ bath time? No one sounded angry or upset. Not even Ahim, who he expected would care quite a lot about that, had sounded so much as surprised. That was… wrong, right? That was totally not a normal reaction to a guy coming into a girl’s bath time?

Well, hang on, maybe it was because it was Doc? Doc was pretty harmless, kinda like a cute pet or something, maybe no one thought of him like a man? Which, ouch, not flattering for poor ol’ Doc, but then he got to go into the bath so maybe? He was really getting the better side of things? Or something?

That had to be it. Gai nodded sternly to himself, his worldview shifting slightly to accommodate that Doc got to take baths with girls and no one cared. Maybe, in this summer of youth funtime thing, he could catch Doc later and tell him how jealous he was, but then not ask for any details because, again, that was something someone very very bad would do, and Gai was not doing anything wrong.

A very muscular arm slipped past Gai - this one he was sure  _ had _ been silent - and started to open the door.

Gai screamed. Doc screamed back from inside. Luka told him to shut up.

Joe said nothing. 

Joe was also wearing a towel. And his hair was down. Gai’s brain blanked out. He looked, very specifically, at Joe’s face, and not at his shoulders or his collarbones or something else that normally wasn’t visible on Joe. He knew, intellectually, that Joe had collarbones all the time, but seeing them made him feel like he needed to go lie down in the dark for a while, for some reason. 

“You- you can’t go in there,” Gai said, shrinking down the door a little. He clung to the mop for dear life, letting it hold him upright.

Joe looked at him. His expression did not change.

“There are girls in there?” Gai tried. 

Joe’s lip moved by a millimeter. Gai couldn’t tell if it was in amusement or annoyance. Gai clutched his mop bravely, and attempted reason one more time.

“Dude, um,  _ Ahim  _ is-”

Joe, apparently deciding he did not have the time to get into this, pushed past Gai into the bathroom. It was all Gai could do to get out of the way, to spin back towards the door, and even then, the unthinkable happened. Ahim and Luka were looking at him from the bath, and he made eye contact with Luka just before the door closed. And Luka  _ frowned  _ at him.

Gai considered dying immediately, but then he realized that no one inside was freaking out, which meant  _ no one cared about Joe, _ which made no sense whatsoever and also? This was starting to scare him, like maybe there was some kind of space pirate law here that he wasn’t getting, and maybe he should just be leaving before things got any worse. Luka had seen him, and now, he heard, she was talking about him, and she sounded  _ very  _ irritated, and right now seemed like a good time to go throw himself off the Galleon entirely, and maybe become a hermit, or a monk.

A very large hand fell on his shoulder. Gai didn’t scream this time. He was too scared, because at this point he had exhausted every other member of the team, and that hand could only belong to one person. He turned around, and immediately regretted that he had not been looking  _ up  _ the whole time he had done so.

Captain Marvelous was  _ not  _ wearing a towel. He was wearing that lock necklace thing of his, and that in the absence of anything else somehow made him  _ more naked _ , and now that image was going to live in Gai’s brain forever, every time he tried to talk to any of them or tell them about Sentai teams or show them his scrapbooks, rising like - oh wait no he should not think the word ‘rise’ right now, that was really dangerous-

Marvelous smiled. It was horrible. Gai swallowed hard. He felt himself smile back, a terrible rictus of animal fear.

All at once, Marvelous opened the door and kicked Gai in the stomach, shoving him backwards into the bathroom and giving him another image that would be burned into his brain forever.

\---

Ten excruciating minutes of scrubbing and stalling later, Gai was making himself as small as possible in the furthest corner of the bath, as though if he tried hard enough, he might just become one with the tiles. Like if he just remembered the moves, he could execute Dyna Black’s invisibility ninpou.

The bath was an enormous, recessed thing set into the floor, at least ten feet on the longest side, with a bench seat that went around the whole thing. There were enough little showers on the doorward side of the room to accommodate a full crew for a ship the size of the Galleon, too. Gai had been in here to clean, but obviously never when it was occupied. And of course he’d _used_ the bath, in all his time living on the ship, but again, never when _everyone else_ was in here. Maybe him and Doc, or him and Joe sharing the kind of companionable silence you had to learn to share if you were going to be alone with Joe, but never with the girls, and never with Marvelous, and certainly not with _everyone_ _all at once._

If you had told Gai Ikari that his punishment for listening in to the girls bathing was to be forced to get into the bath with both of them  _ and _ the rest of the crew, he might have asked to be keel-hauled instead. He wanted very badly to just sink into the water and scream for a while, but he realized that if he did that he would be eyeline to nipple with everyone. It was mortifying, really, the wanting to drown, and the wanting to look, and the wanting not to be seen looking.

At the other end of the bath from Gai was Marvelous, somehow managing to take up an entire side of the giant bath, arms stretched out behind him on the lip of the bath, legs undoubtedly spread as far as he could spread them. He was slouching in that professional way he slouched, grinning, staring ahead of him like he could see all the world in the steam, or at least all of Gai’s stammering, panicked thoughts. Gai was pretty sure he wasn’t  _ actually  _ looking at him, but when Marvelous looked ahead like that, and you were in his general gaze, it was hard not to feel like the spotlight was on you. The rest of the crew seemed unaffected, all of them behaving, again, as though nothing was weird about this situation at all.

Doc was against the same side of the tub as Gai, towards the middle, his head tipped back against the edge of the tub. He had a little bowl of cold water next to his head, and his ducky washcloth spread out over his entire face. Gai could see it rise and fall slightly with every breath, the little bubble of his air supply inflating and deflating one ducky at a time. Gai could see the shadows of all of Doc’s limbs stretched out, limp like a jellyfish. So could Luka, as evidenced by the fact that she was currently telling him he was taking up too much of the bath, and kicking at his legs from her place across from him, her knees cresting the cloudy water like tiny islands.

If the splashing or the half-shouting bothered Joe and Ahim, Gai would never know. They were catty-corner to him, Joe closer than Ahim. Ahim was radiant in the way she was always radiant, now pinker and dewier from the heat of the bath. Her hair was tied up in an elaborate knot, held in place and out of the water with a bunch of pink cotton ribbons. She had another one for Joe, and was braiding his hair to keep it out of the water. Joe, facing Gai, looked… well, if Gai had to put a word to the emotion Joe was showing, as Ahim ran her fingers through his long hair, it was contentment. Perfect, sublime contentment, all softness and peace, which on Joe’s stoic face was actually kind of scary. Gai kind of wished Joe would be content facing someone else, or try to be less handsome while he did it. He wished, honestly, that all of them would try to be less attractive, or at least less naked.

And now that he was thinking about  _ that, _ well, there was nothing  _ weird _ about finding them attractive, it was a fact after all, all five of them were just  _ upsettingly  _ attractive people, and also he respected them all just  _ so _ much, as Sentai and as teammates and as people who could shoot him from like a mile away without even really aiming or anything. Sometimes, he figured, attraction and respect and fear could all be one thing. At least it usually was, in his experience.

But no one was trying to call him out, or yell at him right now. They were just… bathing. Relaxing in the water. Together. All of them. And also him. Where he had never been before.

Gai felt like he was going crazy, but despite that, his back started to unwind. He let himself take slightly less furtive glances, still keeping his eyes carefully above the collarbones. Doc refreshed his washcloth in the little bowl of water, wiping his face and sighing like a man who’d found an oasis in the desert. Gai felt himself smile a teeny little bit. 

“Stop that,” said Luka. Gai flinched, all his good feelings evaporating. The shoe was dropping. 

“What? Stop- stop what? I’m sorry?”

“You’re sitting there like you’re about to  _ die _ .”

“Lay off him, I don’t think his planet has baths,” said Doc, voice muffled by his washcloth. Ahim made what sounded like a soft ‘tut’ of pity. Marvelous snorted.

“What?” Gai laughed nervously. “No, we, uh, we have baths. I’ve taken a bath.” 

“Then stop being  _ weird. _ You’re creeping me out, seriously.” Luka crossed her arms and sneered.

“Sorry,” said Gai. “It’s just. You usually only take baths…” He trailed off. He wasn’t sure how to continue that sentence.

“Alone?” Supplied Ahim, helpful as ever. She tilted her head, and a curl slipped out of the knot on her head, framing the side of her face.

“Well, no, not… not always?” He laughed, even though nothing was funny. How was he supposed to say ‘we have group public baths and they’re fine and _not_ weird and I’ve been in a million of them but one, two of you are girls, and two, all of you are so pretty I think I’m going to die, and am I making this weird or is it _actually_ weird, I literally cannot tell’? He guessed he could just say _that_ , but like, where was the poetry in that? Not exactly smooth. Not that he needed to be smooth. Because why would he _need_ to be smooth with his team who he respected immensely and also could see quite a lot of the bare skin of right now?

“I’m just. I’m gonna, um-”

Before he could say anything else stupid he ducked his head into the water with a splash, rubbing his hair and scrubbing his scalp hard with his nails until the buzzing tingling of pain plus very hot water overtook all his other thoughts, and then he laced his fingers behind his neck and put his head between his knees. He started counting. He made it to 43 before his chest was screaming and his ears were humming and he had to make the choice to actually drown or return to the present. It was a struggle to choose.

When he did come up, with a gasp, he heard Doc scolding.

“-shouldn’t have made him come in here, Marvelous, look what you did.”

“No, no I’m okay, really,” Gai said, quickly, too loudly. He splashed as he turned, also too quickly, sending a tall ripple through the bath. Ahim pulled Joe’s hair out of the way with a deft little twist of his braid.

“See, he’s  _ fine. _ ” Said Marvelous, not really to anyone. Luka shoved him on the arm.

“He’s  _ not _ fine! You’re freaking him out-”

“No really, I’m-”

“Are you okay, Gai?” Doc moved closer to Gai in the water, pulling his ducky washcloth up on top of his hair. The effect was more charming than Gai wanted to admit, a soft blond man with a soft little pile of ducks on his head. “You can say if you’re not okay, no one can  _ make _ you take a bath if your planet doesn’t-”

A soft, gentle voice interrupted him, and though it was so quiet, and so small, all the chatter immediately stopped.

“I think,” said Ahim, smiling as she finished Joe’s hair. She brushed her hands over his shoulders as though dusting him off. “That if Gai says he is alright, we should trust him, as a member of our crew.”

There was a silence that seemed to go on forever, and Gai realized everyone was looking at him, waiting for him to say the final word on if he was okay or not. Joe even came out of his blissful coma to look at him with half-open eyes.

“I- I’m fine. Really.” Said Gai, and to his surprise, he  _ was  _ feeling a little better. Ahim smiled at him, her pink lips curved in that way that made Gai want to melt into a puddle. That smile that made you feel like you were the only one in the room, even if you were one of six and you were extremely naked. 

“Then please, relax and enjoy yourself. We are all equals here.”

No one could argue with that, least of all Gai. Nudity was, if nothing else, something of an equalizer, in the end. And if Ahim said it was okay… well, you couldn’t really argue with royalty, right? And if  _ anyone _ was going to think this was weird, it would be Ahim, right? So, follow Ahim’s lead, right? He could trust Ahim. They all trusted Ahim.

“Well… here, then.” Doc said, and Gai realized how close he still was with a start. He went to hop back, but there wasn’t a back to hop to, and his hands came up, and there was a splash, and somehow, in the midst of it, Doc took one of Gai’s hands in both of his. 

And then, well, you know, Gai was, well, he had  _ held hands _ before, but not with one of the  _ Gokaigers, _ and not with anyone while he was  _ naked, _ and wow hey was it hot in here? And was it too late to say no wait, I’m not okay, or maybe I’m  _ too  _ okay, I think I have to go combust, preferably somewhere private, like maybe the  _ moon? _ Or like,  _ the bottom of the sea?  _ Or maybe, he had it this time, somewhere like-

All of Gai’s thoughts went sideways, and then stopped, derailing, as Doc dug his thumb into the heel of Gai’s hand. Gai made a noise something like ‘gnah’, which made Doc do a little pleased nod and that little ‘I have done something good’ half-smile he did, and he flipped Gai’s hand, palm up, and started to massage in earnest. Gai melted, his back doing a weird, tight little twist as he found himself sinking back against the lip of the tub. This was new. Big day for Gai. Big day for new things. After a second his eyes sank shut. The water was hot, and the room was steamy, and his scalp was starting to tingle, and-

“He’s good at that, huh?” Gai’s eyes fluttered back open. Luka was grinning at him, her chin in her hand.

“Aw, it’s nothing,” said Doc, but his face was pink, and he had a glow of pride about him.

“You never do that for me.” Said Marvelous darkly. He shifted, and stuck his foot out of the water in Luka’s face. Luka shoved it back down.

“You pay me a million and  _ maybe _ I’ll  _ think _ about touching your feet.”

Marvelous, as though Luka hadn’t said anything, and in fact he had never asked her for anything, stuck his foot out of the water by the next closest person, who happened to be Ahim. Joe’s arm went across her chest, fast as lightning, as he caught Marvelous’ foot. He yanked him down into the water, where from what Gai could tell, Marvelous barely managed to catch himself on the bench before submerging entirely.

“ _ Hey! _ ”

“You’re bothering her.”

Ahim giggled. She seemed about as bothered as a kitten in a sunbeam.

“Fine way to treat your Captain, I oughta-”

Joe stretched all of Marvelous’ toes backwards. Gai heard the cracks, but moreover, heard the deep-from-the-chest groan from Marvelous before he slid further into the water. Joe shifted around, catching Marvelous’s ankle in his other hand and bending his foot, rotating his ankle-joint with implacable slowness.

“Ahim,” Luka whined. “Pamper me, everyone else is getting spoiled.”

“Is that what you call this?!” Marvelous cried, struggling to stay upright. 

Ahim giggled again, and Luka draped herself over her back, leaning her head against Ahim’s and sticking her lip out, the very picture of maudlin drama. Ahim reached up and stroked Luka’s hair.

“There, there,” she cooed.

Joe slid his hand up Marvelous’ leg, squeezing his calf. Marvelous gritted his teeth.

“You could at least be a  _ little  _ gentle-”

“You wanted a massage. I’m giving you a massage.”

Meanwhile, at their end of the bath, Doc was just now getting to Gai’s fingers, rubbing each one slowly in turn, section by section. Gai’s toes were flexing, deep under the water. All the hairs on the back of his arms were standing up. He’d never had someone treat him like this, now that he thought of it. He’d spent a pretty long while not getting things like hand massages, his entire life up to this moment in fact, and now he was thinking probably he should do something to change that?

“Is it always like this?” Said Gai, pulling his eyes away from the show. Doc stifled a laugh.

“Preeeetty much.”

Gai snorted, and Doc switched to his other hand.

This was… nice, he realized. Not just the massage, either, but now that it wasn’t so quiet, now that everyone was playing around and making noise and splashing, this was actually, bizarrely, comfortable. He was terribly comfortable, really, comfortable in the way that later, when he thought about this, he would probably be embarrassed about. But for now, just for this moment, as Doc pressed both thumbs into the creases of his hands, it was nice. It was nice to be included, to be invited in.

And people bathed with their families all the time, right? And what were these five if not one of the tightest knit families he had ever known? And okay, maybe most people didn’t still bathe together at this age, but, well, most of them hadn’t really  _ had  _ a childhood, had they? After everything they had been through, here they were, a bunch of people who had lost everything, only to find purpose and companionship and love, together, out there in space. And then they had come here, and they had found  _ him, _ and now… well. 

It was nice to be invited in. It was nice to be thought of as a part of that family. Gai felt like he might cry, actually, thinking about it that way. He was a member of the crew, he had been for a long time, but this was a big step, he felt. Being invited into this space, with these people, could be the most intimate space he had ever been invited into. He was honored they trusted him like this. It was one thing to go into battle with someone, another to drive a giant robot with them, another to save the universe, and another entirely to take a bath with them.

He realized suddenly that Ahim was looking at him, that big, radiant smile on her face, her eyes crinkled in that  _ other  _ little way that made you feel like her smile was all for you. He smiled back, her smile spreading to him immediately. But then Ahim tipped her head, ever so slightly. She bit her lip. She glanced at Marvelous. She looked back at Gai. Gai blinked, and looked at Marvelous, who was now looking at Ahim with singular focus, his brows furrowed slightly. It reminded Gai, in a flash, of the way you might look at a pet you were pretty sure was planning on jumping up on a countertop. Ahim didn’t react to that, instead looking at Joe again. She looked at Gai again. Gai started to feel weirdly tense, like something was about to happen. With her teeth on her lip, Ahim smiled all the wider, and turned her attention fully to Joe, drifting out of Luka’s arms and closer to him in the water.

And then, with one more sideways glance at Gai, she put her delicate, beautiful hands on Joe’s jaw, leaned up, and kissed him.

Gai’s mouth dropped open. Joe inhaled sharply, and though he pulled back slightly, he didn’t pull away. He closed his eyes and gave her his full attention. After a moment that felt, to Gai, both very short and very,  _ very _ long, Joe dropped Marvelous’ leg, put his hands on Ahim’s bare shoulders, and broke away gently. He was smiling.

The bathroom was silent but for the sound of water sloshing against tiles. Gai stared, jaw slack. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Luka, frozen, her mouth and eyes as wide as he was sure his were. And then Joe said:

“Ahim,” and to Gai’s continued shock, he didn’t sound entirely surprised. He sounded… affectionate, and chiding. Like Ahim was being  _ slightly  _ naughty. Ahim giggled.

The spell was broken. The next second, Doc had dropped Gai’s hand back into the water and whirled away, and he and Luka were  _ screaming _ Ahim’s name, splashing everywhere, like they were scolding her, like they couldn’t believe her, like they had- well, like they had...

Gai looked at Marvelous, who was surely Gai’s last port in this storm, their wise, badass captain, who they all loved and trusted, who could always be counted on to say just the right thing. Marvelous had pulled himself back up on the bench, and his face was dark, his arms crossed, and he was scowling like he did when one of them annoyed him.

“Okay,” Marvelous said, loudly, over the splashing and the shouting. “What happened to  _ all of you _ tellin’  _ me _ that there was  _ no way _ any of  _ us  _ were gonna do any of  _ that  _ in front of Gai, because his planet is so  _ backwards _ and we’d just  _ scare him off... _ ”

And then as he trailed off, he turned away from the growing carnage. He put an elbow on the lip of the tub, and put his chin in his hand, and Captain Marvelous, Gokai Red, Professional Pirate, Hero of Earth and the Universe At Large,  _ pouted. _

When Gai looked back, Luka had her arms around Ahim’s shoulders, pulling Ahim back against her as she shouted at her, and Ahim was laughing, loud and high and triumphant, proud as the cat who got the cream. Doc was splashing, fist around the ducky washcloth, and he was shouting, or at least whining really loudly, about ‘all those secret meetings’ and ‘wasted work’, and Joe was looking away and smirking, and trying not to, and his ears were ever so slightly pinker than they had been, and…

And all of a sudden Gai realized, as the pieces clicked into place and all the lightbulbs came to life, that for all his attempts to make this whole evening make sense, he had still been thinking of them wrong. A family, yes, but not like  _ that. _ A family like partners were a family, like a couple was a family.

Or, not a couple. One and one and one and one and one made, well, five. And him. And...  _ And him. _

The last piece - and oh god he  _ hoped  _ this was the last one, all of these pieces had felt like the last one, and then there was always  _ another  _ one - clicked, as he heard his own thoughts floating back to him on the steam, about family, and spaces, and how nice it was to be invited into theirs.

Gai Ikari slid down the side of the tub, his face in his hands, his skin hotter than the bathwater. Just before he sank below the surface, he heard Doc yell:

“Now look what you did! You  _ killed  _ him!”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! As of the day I posted this, it's the 10th anniversary of Gokaiger! I didn't plan that, but it happened, and that's nice. As always, I hope you enjoyed my fic.


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